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Why Not a Three-Day Week?

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Re: Why Not a Three-Day Week?

#81

Post by mkr-hn »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #40
psychometry wrote: post #4

Why not? Because capitalism. New technology will continue to automate away more and more jobs, from manufacturing to the service industry. This could be one of the greatest achievements in human history, leading to that so-called "leisure society" futurists talked about, but that would require a massive overhaul of most countries' economic systems. All those gains in productivity mostly enrich the owner class while t…

We already have the leisure society - the bottom rung of the income distribution (in the US) lives in that society. People below the poverty line in the US work very little and have consumption and disposable income (after taxes/transfers) of about $20k/year. http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/taxes-and-cliffs... http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2012.pdf I don't know why people refuse to acknowledge that we are a…

I don't see a claim in those links that people at the bottom rung have $20k in disposable income. I can't imagine they even have $20k a year to begin with. Your claims are very different from my experience living close enough to that bottom rung to know people in it.

Re: Why Not a Three-Day Week?

#82

Post by psychometry »

grimtrigger wrote: post #29
psychometry wrote: post #4

Why not? Because capitalism. New technology will continue to automate away more and more jobs, from manufacturing to the service industry. This could be one of the greatest achievements in human history, leading to that so-called "leisure society" futurists talked about, but that would require a massive overhaul of most countries' economic systems. All those gains in productivity mostly enrich the owner class while t…

Whats the difference between a leisure state and a welfare state?

Your preconceptions toward the latter, if I had to guess.

Re: Why Not a Three-Day Week?

#83

Post by dllthomas »

mkr-hn wrote: post #81
yummyfajitas wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already have the leisure society - the bottom rung of the income distribution (in the US) lives in that society. People below the poverty line in the US work very little and have consumption and disposable income (after taxes/transfers) of about $20k/year. http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/taxes-and-cliffs... http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2012.pdf I don't know why people refuse to acknowledge that we are a…

I don't see a claim in those links that people at the bottom rung have $20k in disposable income. I can't imagine they even have $20k a year to begin with. Your claims are very different from my experience living close enough to that bottom rung to know people in it.

In the second link there is a graph entitled "Disposable Income for a Hypothetical Single Parent with One Child, by Earnings", which doesn't fall below $20k. Of course, it may not be correct to generalize it, and it is incorrect to present it as "per person" since it represents two people - parent and child.

Re: Why Not a Three-Day Week?

#84

Post by [deleted] »

mkr-hn wrote: post #81
yummyfajitas wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already have the leisure society - the bottom rung of the income distribution (in the US) lives in that society. People below the poverty line in the US work very little and have consumption and disposable income (after taxes/transfers) of about $20k/year. http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/taxes-and-cliffs... http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2012.pdf I don't know why people refuse to acknowledge that we are a…

I don't see a claim in those links that people at the bottom rung have $20k in disposable income. I can't imagine they even have $20k a year to begin with. Your claims are very different from my experience living close enough to that bottom rung to know people in it.

[deleted]

Re: Why Not a Three-Day Week?

#85

Post by psychometry »

wyager wrote: post #27
psychometry wrote: post #4

Why not? Because capitalism. New technology will continue to automate away more and more jobs, from manufacturing to the service industry. This could be one of the greatest achievements in human history, leading to that so-called "leisure society" futurists talked about, but that would require a massive overhaul of most countries' economic systems. All those gains in productivity mostly enrich the owner class while t…

If automation continues and demand stays the same, things like 3-day work weeks will come about naturally. A capitalist system would not prevent that from happening. Would you care to share why you think capitalism would prevent an increase in leisure time (even though it has been increasing since the industrial revolution)?

> If automation continues and demand stays the same, things like 3-day work weeks will come about naturally.

That's simply not true, otherwise we wouldn't be working the same hours at the same adjusted wages as we were 50 years ago despite massive gains in productivity.

A company's increased productivity doesn't benefit the workers, it benefits the owners/shareholders. What do you think the typical factory owner will do when a new assembly line component means he only needs 50 out of his 100 line workers? You're pretty naïve if you think he'll let those 100 employees work 20 hours/week now. No, he'll fire 50 of them and let the wages of the remaining employees stagnate at best since there's more competition for their jobs now. Why? because that's what reduces expenses and improves the immediate share price of his company. Economics 101.

Re: Why Not a Three-Day Week?

#86

Post by psychometry »

tptacek wrote: post #35
psychometry wrote: post #4

Why not? Because capitalism. New technology will continue to automate away more and more jobs, from manufacturing to the service industry. This could be one of the greatest achievements in human history, leading to that so-called "leisure society" futurists talked about, but that would require a massive overhaul of most countries' economic systems. All those gains in productivity mostly enrich the owner class while t…

I perceive this as one of a species of comments that is well-intentioned and valuable in isolation, but that when introduced to the thread has the effect of making it harder to discuss the article on its own terms. It's easy to see the subtext of the article that indicts unrestrained economic competition. So it's hard to ding a comment for surfacing that subtext and engaging with it. But at the same time, having been…

That's a fair point, but I don't think asking the question "Why don't we have a leisure society yet?" is subtextual. I think the question follows immediately from the article and my commentary follows immediately from that.

Re: Why Not a Three-Day Week?

#87

Post by MichaelBurge »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #66
Sharlin wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a horribly short-sighted viewpoint to not take into account the effect teachers (are supposed to) have on whole new generations of people! Teachers raise people who may get billion-dollar ideas in the future, and should be paid accordingly.

They should, but they aren't and this is the reality. Capitalism sucks at valuing things that don't give immediate profit. Education is such a thing - it has extreme ROI... 20 years down the line. Which is too long a time and it gets valued less than small changes that will bring in a little bit of money next month.

How is capitalism the thing valuing teacher's salaries? If referring to the US and public education, aren't they a branch of the government?

And even ignoring that(for example, at private schools), the 'consumer' here is really the parent. The child isn't in a position to choose schools, so it's really about selling to the parent. I imagine it has to be hard to get a sense of any 20-year projected ROI if you can only indirectly measure teaching quality by what your child says and standardized test scores.

Re: Why Not a Three-Day Week?

#88

Post by yummyfajitas »

dllthomas wrote: post #83
mkr-hn wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see a claim in those links that people at the bottom rung have $20k in disposable income. I can't imagine they even have $20k a year to begin with. Your claims are very different from my experience living close enough to that bottom rung to know people in it.

In the second link there is a graph entitled "Disposable Income for a Hypothetical Single Parent with One Child, by Earnings", which doesn't fall below $20k. Of course, it may not be correct to generalize it, and it is incorrect to present it as "per person" since it represents two people - parent and child.

You can get consumption data from the BLS, which gives similar numbers:

http://www.bls.gov/cex/22013/midyear/income.pdf

You'll need to dig in to figure out what a "referent person" is.

Re: Why Not a Three-Day Week?

#89

Post by dllthomas »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #88
dllthomas wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the second link there is a graph entitled "Disposable Income for a Hypothetical Single Parent with One Child, by Earnings", which doesn't fall below $20k. Of course, it may not be correct to generalize it, and it is incorrect to present it as "per person" since it represents two people - parent and child.

You can get consumption data from the BLS, which gives similar numbers: http://www.bls.gov/cex/22013/midyear/income.pdf You'll need to dig in to figure out what a "referent person" is.

Please explain how this supports your figure. I don't see it. Dividing the consumer unit "average annual expenditure" by the "average number of persons per consumer unit" per column there, only the top two exceed $20k, and only the top 3 approach $20k. It does all exceed $10k, but there's still 27 million households spending less than $15k/yr/person - where it would be more correct to say "about $10k" than "about $20k".

Re: Why Not a Three-Day Week?

#90

Post by yummyfajitas »

dllthomas wrote: post #89
yummyfajitas wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get consumption data from the BLS, which gives similar numbers: http://www.bls.gov/cex/22013/midyear/income.pdf You'll need to dig in to figure out what a "referent person" is.

Please explain how this supports your figure. I don't see it. Dividing the consumer unit "average annual expenditure" by the "average number of persons per consumer unit" per column there, only the top two exceed $20k, and only the top 3 approach $20k. It does all exceed $10k, but there's still 27 million households spending less than $15k/yr/person - where it would be more correct to say "about $10k" than "about $20…

My mistake, I missed the fact that consumer units had multiple people in them. I thought those figures were for individuals.
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